Conquering Fear Revised
by AllGoodNamesWereTaken
Summary: Kyle is possessed by Parallax, can he find it within himself to overcome fear? Edited to make the prose flow more smoothly, plot and story unchanged.


This story takes place during the Sinestro Corp War. It deals with an old line from Kyle's JLA days about him one day being a greater Green Lantern than Hal Jordan.

**Disclaimer:** All characters and Intellectual Properties belong to DC Comics and Vertigo Comics. I make no profit off of this work of fiction.

I just tried to fight him… it… whatever Parallax is. Inside this place, my own mind, I should have control, should have power. But I don't. Parallax has pretty much defeated me. Now as I lie here, he's taunting me, telling me that there is only fear, before he grabs my head and forces me to look out of the window in this construct of my mothers house in my head. He's forcing me to look out though the window, see what my body is doing, doing under its control.

I see Jack T. Chance. I've only met him once, or maybe twice, I'm not entirely sure at this point, but I remember that my impression of him was that he was a dick. All swagger, bluster and anger. But now as I'm seeing what Parallax is doing to him, I can feel through my connection with Parallax Jack's fear. I'm screaming out, yelling at him to stop it, but there's no stopping for Parallax.

And I'm forced to watch as Jack dies.

I can't fight Parallax, so I whisper out, "Damn you to hell."

He tosses me aside, telling me that he's not the one in hell. He turns away from me, taunting me again. I spot and pick up a fallen pencil and end up stabbing him in the eye, screaming at him, telling him that I'll find a way to stop him, I'll find a way out.

He just laughs.

And he leaves me here in my own head, telling me I'm still trapped, that I have no hope.

He's right, however. I am trapped. I can't get out. And I rage at that. Everything in the room is pretty much smashed but there is one thing still intact. I grab the painting off the wall, the one that I had told the guys about back on Oa. In my anger I'm going to destroy but I stop when I see it.

As a kid, I never knew who had made this picture, but now I can see the signature on the back.

Moira Rayner.

My mother. She painted it.

And in that moment, it comes to me. It dawns on me that I am the person that I am, that I can do the things I do because of her. That is her gift to me. The one she gave to me her entire life. A gift that she is still giving to me, even now.

I'm no longer lost. I have hope.

I can feel myself falling in to the painting, towards the glowing distant star. As I do, a memory comes to me, one from my time in the Justice League. I'm not sure if it's truly a memory or the memory of a dream. I was speaking to a man, his name was either Dream or Destiny, I can't recall which. The topic was about Hal Jordan, the greatest of the Green Lanterns.

His response to me didn't make any sense to me. "Hal Jordan knew no fear. You know fear. You will be greater."

It still doesn't make much sense to me, but I feel a great calm wash over me.

Now I feel fear, but it's not my fear. It's Parallax's. He shows up before me again, in the field between me and the star. He taunts and postures again, but I can feel his own fear. I let his words wash over me, and remain calm, my hope reinforcing my will. He falters for a moment before attacking me.

And I let him.

He has already possessed my body, now he's trying to possess my mind. His fear clashing with and invades my will, my hope.

As he tries to destroy my will and hope, I feel them reacting, instead of being wiped out they start to intertwine with Parallax, merge with him.

He is feeling it to. In his panic he tries to pull away from me, but it's too late for us.

And we both continue falling towards the star.

**********

I don't know what's going on. I just stopped Parallax from harming my family, but time is running out.

Guy was asking why Kyle wasn't breaking free, didn't even seem to be fighting back. I was in the middle of telling him that when I broke free, it was because I had the help of the Specter. I was about to tell them that we needed the painting from Kyle's moms house to help him break free, when Parallax just stopped and started clutching his head.

It appears Kyle is fighting him after all.

I tried to encourage him, to let him know that he wasn't alone. "I know its hard Kyle, but you've got to claw your way out of there. You told me your mom faced death with no fear. You can do it to."

Parallax started shacking uncontrollably. "That's it, Kyle. Now come on. Let's…" it was then that my ring ran out of power.

I panicked. Without power, if Kyle lost to Parallax before the other got here, I wouldn't be able to stop him from going after my family.

When Parallax stopped shaking and stood up I screamed. "KYLE! FIGHT HIM!"

I stopped when I noticed Kyle changing. The white at his temples caused by Parallax's possession turned back to black, and his costume changed a bit. Where before there was on the left part of his chest the Sinestro Corp symbol, there were now three small circular symbols. One was still the Sinestro Corp symbol, another was the Green Lantern symbol and the final was a blue symbol that looked vaguely like a cross between the two. And though his costume still looked like Parallax's costume and remained primarily green, it now had some yellow and blue accents to it.

"Kyle?" I asked uncertainly, unsure of what the change meant.

"Hello, Hal. And thanks for trying to help me." Came Kyle's calm voice.

"What happened?"

Kyle looked at me with a slight smile before answering, "We don't have time for a full explanation right now, but long story short, the fear no longer controls me. Now let's get you charged up."

With that, he grabs me, and before I can blink, I'm back in my brother's apartment, standing by my battery and Kyle is nowhere to be seen.

My brother has come running into the room with a baseball bat at hearing someone moving around in his apartment but he stopped when he saw me.

"Hal, what happened out there? What happened with that other guy?" he asked, brandishing his bat while looking around the room for the boogey man that was Parallax.

I tell him what I know while charging my ring, all the while wondering myself about where Kyle has gone to.

**********

It's glorious; the carnage, the fear. Ahh yes, the fear. I can smell it wafting off of everyone nearby, the defenseless humans and their protectors alike. The slaughter is beautiful.

Nearby I see two of the defenders, one helping the other one up after being knocked down by Karu-Sil. Both were females, one bearing the S-shield emblem known to be worn by the last Kryptonian Superman and the other wearing a blue shirt with a star on it, carrying some sort of staff. The staff wielding one is helping the other, and neither seems to be paying attention to their immediate surroundings at the moment.

I'm smiling as I think to myself while I fly up and draw a bead on the both of them that they are going to be all to easy.

"Warning," I hear from my ring, "power level at sixteen point two percent and depleting."

I hear exclamations and cry's from the others around me that they to are losing power.

"Warning, power levels at five point three percent and depleting."

In panic and confusion I look over to the central power battery, and I see the herald Parallax floating near it. It looks like he's drawing energy away from it.

In dawning horror and anger I realize that he has betrayed us.

"Warning, power levels at zero point two percent and depleting"

Before I can say anything, I find myself falling towards the ground hundreds of feet below me, as hundreds of my fellow Corp members plummet alongside me.

**********

Drawing all the power out of the yellow central power battery was a simple enough task, and using it to draw the power out of the Sinestro Corp rings was just as simple. I didn't worry about what was going to happen to them, as the Green Lantern Corp caught the now depowered yellow lanterns, even the ones who had happened to be in the air at the time they ran out of power. My attention was on the WarWorld, now powerless and falling. With but a thought, I grabbed it and hurled it up into orbit, not having the time too properly deal with it or the Anti-Monitor right now. I'll get to them once the current crisis is over.

Within moments of me touching the ground, I'm surrounded, even Cyborg Superman is there. Cyborg Sups is demanding to know what the hell I'm doing, while everyone else looks ready to fight. Superman and Wonder Woman look at me suspiciously and Batman… well I'm not sure he has the ability to be anything but distrustful.

Alan Scott is there, along with a number of JSA members. His face betrays a mixture of emotions. He's obviously ready for a fight, but after what I just did he looks hopeful that I am again on the side of the angels.

"What is going on here?" Superman's question was asked without harshness, but you could hear the steel behind his voice, the tone that said he would get his answers.

"It's alright for the moment Superman," I said with what I hoped was a disarming smile, "Parallax has been dealt with for the moment. It's me, Kyle."

Superman smiled and looked like he was about to say something when Cyborg Superman screamed and charged me. Superman and Wonder Woman were simply smashed to the sides in his charge against me.

Before he got to me, I lashed out with a brief exertion of the power at my command. His arms and legs were separated from his torso and he was encased in an energy field. I floated him over to Salaak so that he could be brought back to the ScienceCells.

From the sides, Batman demanded answers from me, "Tell us exactly what happened to you."

"I would love to answer you Batman, but I believe I'm about to be interrupted."

"Damn straight you are, jerkface" screamed Superboy-Prime, accompanying that with a punch to my face that would probably have leveled Mt. Rushmore.

When I turned back to face him, I could see the surprise on Prime's face that his blow had only turned my head to the side and made me stager slightly. But he recovered quickly enough.

Prime looked at me with a sneer, "Your hero's couldn't stop me before; your precious Corp couldn't stop me before. Do you think I'm going to allow a fifth rate lantern who only got his ring though sheer dumb luck stop me from getting my Earth back?" And with that he attacked me.

As far as I could figure, the power of Ion was the penultimate force in the universe. The only power that I knew of that was probably a greater power was the power of the Specter, and since Hal was the Specter at the time that I was Ion, I never had to put that question to the test. However when I had first received the powers of Ion, when I was still learning about what I was capable of and how to handle the power, if I had been in a fight of this magnitude, I probably would have lost. But unfortunately for Prime, twice I have been infused with the power of Ion, have learned what I am capable of and this new Parallax power is pretty much the same as the Ion power.

The fight didn't even last five minutes. When it was done, Prime was heading back to his own ScienceCell inside the red sun eater.

And I could see from everyone's faces, including the collected Guardians of the Universe, that there were some questions that I was going to have to answer. I think dealing with the Anti-Monitor might be an easier task for me.


End file.
